Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] continues to recruit graduate students from U.S. university campuses to perform Iraq war-related research for the Pentagon in this 21st-century “era of permanent war and anti-war blogging.” According to the IDA website (www.ida.org), U.S. graduate students who become research staff members at IDA’s Alexandria, Virginia research facility “will be challenged” by the following types of war-related research questions:

“What are the new roles and responsibilities of the various combatant commands as the United States confronts new threats and adversaries?

“How can the Department of Defense exploit advanced technologies and new operating concepts?

“How do you develop new, robust networking among soldiers, sensors and systems?

“What technologies should be used to detect mines and unexploded ordnance? and“What economic effect does the increased rate of guard and reserve mobilizations have on employers?”

Perhaps IDA research staff members and the U.S. university-affiliated folks who sit on the IDA board of trustees these days should also be asked to answer a sixth war-related research question: How many Afghan and Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2001 by the weapons systems that IDA research staff members and U.S. university researchers have helped develop since the Institute for Defense Analyses was created in 1956?